Footloose, Kid-Free, and Anxious You'll Regret It? This Writer Doesn't

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Footloose, Kid-Free, and Anxious You'll Regret It? This Writer Doesn't

Some of us never thought we'd want kids, then got blindsided by our late-30s impulse to give it a shot. (Whoa, we're parents now?!) Others always knew they'd have children, and so here they are now, busy managing the sweet, messy lives of one or two or three or more small humans. Many have always wanted kids, but life circumstances got in the way. And then there are those people who never wanted kids, their initial instinct always burning bright, eventually solidifying into a decision, a fact on the ground, intentionally or by default. How are they doing now? Chances are if they never felt tortured by ambivalence, they're still happy about their choice, fully in their element, embracing life's adventures, and thriving in their non-parent lifestyles.

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Apropos of Nothing: A Sunny Groove Day Song to Kick Off Spring

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On this early spring day—still cold here in New York, but who's quibbling—we're humming a diabolically catchy song by the Sir Douglas Quintet, a '60s psychedelic rock band from Texas. It's called Sunday Sunny Mill Valley Groove Day, and it gives us a sunshiney springtime buzz every time we hear it, Sunday or weekday or any day. 

We came across the track via the Song Bar, a UK-based site that asks people to nominate their favorite songs on a weekly theme, in this case renewal. Considering that the subject of renewal, specifically the "mid-life" version (whatever "mid-life" means), is in the air lately with Crunch Time readers and friends, we thought at least a few of you out there might like this one.

The song is an ode to the Northern California magic that lured the band out west to join the San Francisco music scene of the late '60s. Frank Black covered the track too on one of his post-Pixies albums, but we're partial to the Sir Douglas original.

We recommend taking Sir Douglas for a little spin on the turntable, or that YouTube or Spotify turntable up in the clouds, and taking yourself out for a spring walk, sun or rain, snow or sunflowers. Here's to March and springtime, at last, and to everyone who'll be out there marching.

Douglas Sahm of the Sir Douglas Quintet, left.

Douglas Sahm of the Sir Douglas Quintet, left.

Photo at top: Mount Tamalpais, near Mill Valley, CA, by Zachary Domes via Unsplash.

Calling All Gen X Women: Is the "New Mid-Life Crisis" Ringing a Bell?

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Calling All Gen X Women: Is the "New Mid-Life Crisis" Ringing a Bell?

If you're a woman born anytime between the late '60s and early '80s, this Oprah.com article, "The New Mid-Life Crisis," is a must-read.

According to a thoroughly unscientific estimate, 100 percent of the women we know relate to somewhere between 50 percent and 95 percent of the angst described in this scorchingly timely piece by St. Marks Is Dead author Ada Calhoun. Granted, the article came out this past fall, but we were busy and distracted and somehow missed it.

Missed it too? Read it now, whether or not you embrace or loathe the term Gen X. And whether you're married or single, with or without kids, living in a city or a suburb or a village or wherever. Working way too hard or not hard enough, happily married or happily single or unhappily married or unhappily single. A lot of what's in Calhoun's essay will resonate, enormously. 

Choice quotes:

  • "'[Middle-aged women] are smoking in their bedrooms out the window the way they did when they were 16,' says Elizabeth Earnshaw, a marriage and family therapist in Philadelphia."
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Why We Need More Midwives in America: It's a Life or Death Issue

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Why We Need More Midwives in America: It's a Life or Death Issue

If you've never seen the BBC series Call the Midwife, check it out on your next Netflix-and-chill night—that's if you're game for an hour (and then another hour, and then another hour) of the most rollicking, eye-opening, laugh-and-cry TV entertainment to grace screens in a long while. Set in London's East End in the 1950s and '60s, the series kicked off in 2012, and Season 7 starts on March 25. So catch up fast if you get hooked, like we are! The show is based on the memoirs of former midwife Jennifer Worth, and early episodes had voice-overs by Vanessa Redgrave.

In England, midwives play a central role and are involved in half of all childbirths. Kate Middleton used a midwife for her first two births. In the U.S., midwifery is marginalized, and some states make it nearly impossible for midwives to practice. But a new article this week in ProPublica by Nina Martin, one of the journalists behind the groundbreaking Lost Mothers series, reports on a recent study showing how the states that integrate midwives into the health care system have the best health outcomes for mothers and babies. States that don't support midwifery show the worst outcomes

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Thinking About Having a Baby Solo? Here's How This Musician, Teacher, and Mom Did It

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Thinking About Having a Baby Solo? Here's How This Musician, Teacher, and Mom Did It

Women now have more options than ever before about when and how to have a baby. (Well, Roe v. Wade protections may vanish before our very eyes, but that’s another story.) Deciding to become a solo parent, with the help of assisted reproductive technologies, is one example of a path that wasn’t available in decades past—and it can lead to an incredibly fulfilling life as a parent.

But the path isn't easy, by any stretch of the imagination. Solo pregnancy and childbirth come with their own built-in challenges, layered right on top of the struggles that all parents face.

At Crunch Time Parents, the women we’ve met who have had babies on their own are a super-inspiring, tough, loving (and funny!) bunch, and we’re proud to be able to highlight some of their experiences here as part of our Crunch Time Q&A series.

Meet Jessica Ivry, an acclaimed Bay Area musician, educator, and mom to two-year-old Esti. Here, Jessica opens up about what it took to get where she is now: a happy, fortunate, and hard-working parent of a beautiful and active little girl.

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Gray Hair: It's Not Just for Teenagers Anymore

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Gray Hair: It's Not Just for Teenagers Anymore

Look, we know it's easy to rock the silver-hair trend when you're 19 and you've never glimpsed a gray strand anywhere near your own scalp. The yay-for-gray fad of the past few years has been mostly about the cool kids ("metallic hair is cool AF"), not so much the grown-ups ("damn, my roots are showing again").

Is this finally changing? Celebrities of all ages are embracing gray, which means we'll all soon fall in line, no? Allure magazine just announced that gray hair "is set to be 2018's most popular hair-color trend."

Sure, certain brave female celebs over 60 have embraced gray for years now, like Jamie Lee Curtis—who was way ahead of the curve when she stopped dyeing her hair at age 41—and Helen Mirren, who even in her 70s can pull off a plunging purple lace dress. And let's not forget Diane Keaton, who made oversized men's suits stylish way before David Byrne got the idea.

Meanwhile, a few years after Kate Moss (now 44) first showed up in public sporting gray roots, young stars like the K-pop sensation CL are still playing around with the look.

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This New Study on Advanced Maternal Age Pregnancies Is Full of Positive News (Despite the Headline)

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This New Study on Advanced Maternal Age Pregnancies Is Full of Positive News (Despite the Headline)

If you're thinking of getting pregnant at advanced maternal age (i.e. at 35 or older), you've no doubt heard about the risks by now: higher rates of chromosomal abnormalities, miscarriage, and pregnancy or childbirth complications. But a substantial new Swedish study of more than 350,000 women showed that the increased risk isn't as high as you might think, and the chances of a healthy outcome are overwhelmingly positive.

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Word Meds: Kids These Days

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Bob-Marley-in-Concert_Zurich_05-30-80.jpg

Just a few inspiring quotes for today, in honor of the post-Parkland student activists who are putting their energy, brilliance, and commitment into fighting for long-overdue changes in gun control policy. Because even if it seems useless to try to defeat the NRA's stranglehold, or even if that's what some grownups keep saying anyway, these kids are showing us that we might be totally, hopelessly wrong.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not.” —Dr. Seuss, The Lorax  

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” — Anne Frank

Get up, stand up, Don't give up the fight.” —Bob Marley

Photo by Ueli Frey via Wikimedia Commons. 

More Mass Shootings, More "Thoughts and Prayers," More Crickets: SO NOW WHAT?

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More Mass Shootings, More "Thoughts and Prayers," More Crickets: SO NOW WHAT?

Yes, pretty much.

Every school shooting, every mass gun massacre, every image of family members desperately searching the scene for their children, or collapsing as they find out their kids didn't make it: Every single one of these events is absolutely shattering. And still, after so many—so so so so many—of these incidents every year, month, and week, a numbness tends to set in. But now the opposite is happening...

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This 44-Year-Old Olympic Athlete and Mother of Three Kicks Sarah Palin's "Hockey Mom" Butt

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This 44-Year-Old Olympic Athlete and Mother of Three Kicks Sarah Palin's "Hockey Mom" Butt

Where do we even begin with Riika Valila? 

1) Finnish ice hockey champ Riikka Valila is an insanely talented athlete and four-time Olympian, currently competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang.

2) Riikka Valila (aka Hanna-Riikka Nieminen-Välilä) is 44 years old. Did we mention she's still competing in the Olympics?

3) Riikka Valila has three kids, and had her youngest at age 35—which counts as advanced maternal age, albeit barely, and also advances the "she's a champ" theme. Raising three kids should be its own Olympic sport, but that's another blog post.

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Egg Freezing: Should You Do It?

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Egg Freezing: Should You Do It?

"I am single and babyless not because my career is standing in the way, but because I haven’t met the person I want to make one with yet," writes 29-year-old Washington Post reporter and filmmaker Nicole Ellis in an article introducing her new serialized mini-documentary, Should I Freeze My Eggs?

Ellis appeared on the terrific Brian Lehrer radio show on New York's NPR affiliate, WNYC, this morning to talk about the documentary, and about her own attempts to figure out how egg-freezing works and whether she should do it herself. As she worked on the series, Ellis wondered why women's fertility is always framed in negative or perilous terms, and her questions led her to the guy who originally coined the notorious term "biological clock" in 1978, another Washington Post columnist named Richard Cohen.

Her response to Cohen, and Cohen's own response to Ellis, are definitely worth a listen, as is Ellis's thoughtful exploration of a question that so many women are confronting now: to freeze or not to freeze?

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When's the Right Time to Say the F Word to Your Doctor?

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When's the Right Time to Say the F Word to Your Doctor?

"Are we on the brink of an infertility crisis?" That's the panic-inducing headline of a recent piece in The Lily, The Washington Post's new-ish digital "publication for women." The subtitle reads, "American women are having kids later. What's the impact of 'the new normal'?" 

The Lily's article mentions the declining fertility rates worldwide and cites, among many causes, the fact that more women are deciding to become parents after age 35, i.e. at advanced maternal age, when fertility starts declining.

The point of the piece isn't to make women feel guilty about postponing parenthood to a time in our lives when we actually feel ready for it. And it's not just to give a reality-check (if anyone even needed one) that delaying parenthood can mean missing out on having kids. Chances are,

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